RANTS FROM OBLIVION

I realized listening to Bjork's music tonight that I really love her - her passion is infectious - I think I wanna marry her....
oh dammmmn, i'm already hitched.....
oh well....


But on to more pressing concerns: my fingers are coming apart at the seams. except fingers dont come with seams so they've decided to go on their own and divide one painful eight of an inch at a time. And to add effluvium to the flame, all on a bunch of my fingertipss at the same time. So I crazy glued 'em (like I do every night).
The red dust from the padauk is creating tributaries within my fingerprints. I didnt know I had these miniscule canals intersecting my fingerprints til now - mini red streamlets. It's like an aerial photo of a litty itty bitty red river.
Moisturization is critical.




THE FLASH KIND OF WASHES OUT THE WARMTH OF THE WOOD'S COLOR (ABOVE, RIGHT) BUT ALSO GIVES YOU A HINT OF THE FIGURE THAT'S GONNA POP WHEN I HAND RUB SOME TUNG OIL ON IT

I've been enjoying myself enormously for the last week or so making terry and scott an entertainment center from beautiful quilted maple and deliciously rich red padauk. here are a few pics of some of the fun as it all painstakingly comes together.

It isn't amusing to see people rationalizing mean-ness or cruelty with the "yer so sensitive" response.
You see that crap a lot in grade school.
"I didnt think she'd cry - what a baby" or:
"Why'd he have to go and bleed?!?!? I though he could take it" and:
"Why donthcu just get over it maaaan??"
Nahh, you couldnt pay me to be a kid again. I mean I was pretty much left alone by the real punks. Occasionally someone in a higher grade just has it out for you and you're at their mercy - but that's how you develop a sense of humor - and a sense of survival.
But when you get older, you figure you should be more immune to it. And just when you think you're safe, you get blindsided by someone you'd never suspect of being a bully.

I've always felt that it takes a bigger man to not:
1. kiss somebody's ass who's bigger than you are, or
2. make somebody who's smaller than you feel even smaller.

So in dealing with everyone I try to give 'em the respect they deserve. (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt at first, but only until it's shown they dont deserve it) I always felt that it would be a lesson that would be carried on. But I'm wondering about that now - seems that some people only appreciate respect if they have to grapple for it like a man under water for air.

I remember watching Miss America or some such show with my wife Di and she mentioned something about how the contestant's dress was inappropriate for her weight. Now the contestant was 200 miles away and I'm sure was totally non-cognizant of the comment. Well, someone else watching the show reacted is if the comment had been made directly to them - which it hadnt. So, in the interests of "sensitivity" I played down the remark to minimize the psychological scarring which was certainly to ensue if I werent to convene. I might have been wrong.
I think I shoulda just said: Oh My Gawwd, You're So Sennnsitiiive!
What's wrong with YOU? - she's just too heavy for the dress."

And now the lesson hoped for is the lesson lost, and the chance to create more sensitivity through childish, callous, forthrightness was lost thru an expression of respect which was never respected. Indeed, trashed.

And the percussive retribution for that sensitivity is alive as my soul tediously senses times of my life slowly negated - the good, the bad, the hopes of tomorrows unlived, unloved.

Sometimes being cool aint nuthin' but being cold.

I'd only been born a few months and already I was experiencing my 3rd new year.

And so it is again - the old slate swiped clean and a fine fresh horizon beckoning my sailing, whirling, wandering craft. What direction to maneuver with a rudder gone amok? Alas, the tide of fate will no doubt call for sails to billow and steer my bow of fortune toward lands I still know not.

The call to love is firmly planted in my soul - the winds of time have yet to rip the garment of that robe. And yet the seeds of doubt begin to whisper - their sprouts of pollen, mold, and sullen apprehensive vines, which deep beneath the intractable stoney, grassy facade, seek sustenance to bring to bear the weeds of fear - a garden of acquiescent sublimation and quiet resignation.

The toll of love is not the pain of loss as much the pain of loss for naught. The calm commitment to raise the flower from the earth and tenderly nurture its beauty - to nurture for the sake of calling forth the best the orchid has - has to sing, perhaps to dance, and then to marvel as the form for which you dreamt, exceeds so far beyond the tantalizing ring of your imagination.

Ahh! But then the empty rooms clang noiselessly and years of toil and aching bones bring forth even larger callous caverns. The beat of old and tired hearts cant lure the rush of joy from distant empty ears or eyes. Has time come now for the well to finally call the pail to cease it's fruitless irrigation? Surely not from love's lost luster. It burns ever sweet.
So, has time come? Is meaning's glow retreating much as a flickering candle's flame harkens darkness?

Now the new year calls and as the breezes blow across the canvas of my life, I tread the oaken planks and squint to see the shadow of an apparent apparition - a port perhaps. Will once again, the blood of new found promise stir the effervescence in my brain?

A port perhaps....